TWENTY YEARS AGO – September 1967: On the 10th, the three-man crew of a DC-6 airliner flying at 16,000 feet near the Pyrenees mountains—80 miles northwest of Barcelona, Spain—watched a cone-shaped object fly across their path at supersonic speed about 40 miles ahead. Then the craft slowed, changed direction, and zoomed toward the airliner. It passed half a mile beneath their plane before disappearing. "It was fantastic—I saw the object for three minutes and it was like nothing I had seen before," said Captain Fred Underhill, who had 26 years flying experience. First Officer Patrick Hope, 25, who sketched the object on a pad while it was in sight, said: "It was about 100 feet high and 80 feet wide, and shaped something like an ice cream cone pointed upward. It was apparently made of silvery metal. The top pointed part was quite clear, but below that it was an indistinct shape lost in some sort of haze." The sun was shining on one side of the craft. Captain Underhill said: "I estimate that in the first minute I watched, the object must have traveled about 60 miles. This puts its speed at about 3500 miles per hour, faster than any aircraft I have ever seen before. It was not revolving. There was no sign of portholes, doors, or even a vapor trail." Flight Engineer Brian Dunlop, 28, who had clocked about 2500 flying hours, said: "The shape drawn by Hope is accurate. If it had been flying with the point forward, it would have been a good aerodynamic shape, but flying with the point upward goes against any known design.”